Sleepyhead. A 'Tom Thorne' book - a series I knew nothing about. I got it for free for my kindle off Amazon for some reason and not sure why.

I'm not attracted to crime novels but I enjoyed this. Very good prose - very tidy.

I started to read Charlie Higson's young adult book 'The Enemy' to see whether it was suitable for child no.1 to read and now I can't put it down.

It's about a plague that turns every adult into a disease ridden cannibal 'zombie' and the kids who have to survive in the ruins of London. It's surprisingly grim and doesn't pull any punches in killing children in a wide variety of ways. Simple prose, as you would expect given the audience, but very effectively done and extremely tense, atmospheric and at times genuinely scary.

Gremill wrote:

I started to read Charlie Higson's young adult book 'The Enemy' to see whether it was suitable for child no.1 to read and now I can't put it down. It's about a plague that turns every adult into a disease ridden cannibal 'zombie' and the kids who have to survive in the ruins of London. It's surprisingly grim and doesn't pull any punches in killing children in a wide variety of ways. Simple prose, as you would expect given the audience, but very effectively done and extremely tense, atmospheric and at times genuinely scary.

I read that as one of my younger cousins left it in my flat. Enjoyed it too but didn't end up getting any of the others.

The Last Days of New Paris.

I'd started to wonder about China Mieville. I enjoyed This Census Taker and Three Moments of an Explosion (The Dowager of Bees is a firm favourite) but after grinding out quality novel after quality novel in such a short space of time he hadn't published one in 5 years.

This isn't a novel either. However, it is a huge throwback to his Bas-Lag books in so many ways. The description of a magic infused war between fascists and surrealists is Mieville at his raucous best. Weird, magical, absorbing fiction. Fall Rot .

Nailed on for award nominations if you ask me. Highly recommended.

It's really good.

Saw some talk about This Census Taker being covertly set in Bas-Lag. Not considered that personally, but I wouldn't be shocked. There are almost certainly some dissections of it to PROVE THIS AS FACT somewhere.

He is my favourite author who looks like he would beat me up.

Station 11 was decent though I was expecting more of a story based on the travelling symphony when it's primarily about the sense of disconnect survivors and the new generations have between a pre- and post- collapse world where 95%+ of people died over a few months. I'm surprised it won the Arthur C Clarke award considering the only concession is a super Swine flu that kills within days of exposure. The author it seems voiced disagreement when it was categorised as sci-fi which is fair enough.

Moonlighting as a pleb means I'd not read Fahrenheit 451 till this week. I finished it with the same feeling I had after polishing off To Kill a Mockingbird last year in that this is a work well justified of the classic status. I didn't quite the expect the strong suicide themes either and cultural despair. Captain Beatty is a fascinating character with far more implied depth than a small novel has any right to get across.

The afterword by Bradbury is pretty illuminating to boot. His story about inspiration for the The Pedestrian short story from being stopped by a policeman while strolling who thought he was fishy, then drove off after saying "Don't do it again!". Then he briefly mentions some mad other stories he's done I may well have to track down - 

"The Exiles, concerning the characters in all the Oz and Tarzan and Alice books, and all the characters in the strange tales written by Hawthorne and Poe, exiled to Mars where one by one their ghosts melt and smoke and fly away to a final death when the last books on earth are cremated.
In Usher II, my hero collects all the intellectual book burners of earth, those sad souls who believe fantasy is bad for the mind, dances them at a Red Death costume ball, and sinks them to drown in a tarn as the second House of Usher vanishes from sight in countless fathoms."

@Muzzy, have you read the Wool trilogy? That has a similar story arc. I adored The Passage, but gave up on The Twelve as it just didn't grab me. Will go back to it, if the final book is decebt.

Not a book review but whatever.

I like real books. I like my standard Kindle too. Does anyone have a Kindle Voyage or Oasis? The first sounds like it might be worth the investment. The latter is crazy expensive. Experiences with these?

That's what got me thinking, heh.

The biggest difference other than slight improvements/changes to form factor and weight is the adaptive light. It's better in every way, I gather, but is £60 more expensive. The biggest difference seems to be the adaptive backlight.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/kindle-voyage-vs-kindle-paperwhite

The Voyager has haptic buttons instead of pure touch. Not quite the same I know.

I like the physical buttons on my current Kindle (2012 basic, maybe?).

pantyfire wrote:

Do either of them have physical page forward/back buttons on the case itself? That's the one thing i miss about my older none paperwhite kindle.

Still use my version 2 and don't see the appeal of upgrading. Physical page turn buttons and a keyboard. 3G too.

My daughters have the paper white an it's excellent - I just like my old one. Paperwhite even with just one next page button would be perfect.

My only issue with my old kindle was the need for an external light source at night or in low light (baker st District and Circle line platform). Having the bedside lamp on when the wife was trying to sleep or using a little led light that threw glare spots onto the screen was a ballache.

The paperwhite solves those little issues. The screen imo is exactly the same as my old kindle, i have adjusted the light so that during the day it's just like reading my old kindle but at night with the bedroom lights off its comfortable to read in the pitch black. 

It really, really is a tiny issue but moving your thumb to touch the screen to progress the page is the only gripe i have with the paperwhite, i have got used to it, and that gripe is more than outweighed by the lit screen. Everything else is spot on.